Sociology is part of the multidisciplinary Social Science Department, which offers a variety of related academic programs. As the systematic study of how people live together in groups, sociology is essential for understanding why people think and act as they do, how societies hold together or experience conflict, and how cultures differ. The sociology program helps you learn to see how the social world is organized and structured, and helps you better see connections between your personal life, your community, and the world. This helps you evaluate approaches to the social issues you face today and contributes to improving our collective quality of life.

Whatever your personal and career goals in life, you need to know how the social world around you works and how it might be changed for the better. This is true regarding the smallest units in the social system, such as your household or workplace, and the larger ones, such as your community, your country, or even the world ecosystem. The Alverno sociology program offers courses about all these levels of social life. This is why sociology not only forms a fascinating area of study in itself but is also at the heart of so many other areas of study and professions that deal with people. To study sociology is to study a core framework that can influence all your other endeavors.

To become an effective sociological thinker, you develop a number of key abilities. For example, they include the ability to:

1. Analyze societies and the world around you. You learn a language for identifying and describing the key features of social life and apply various theories to explain how they interconnect. You learn how to relate your personal experiences with larger cultural trends and social conditions. And you examine in depth key social institutions, like the family, work and the economy, politics, and the criminal justice system.
2. Conduct research and use data professionally. You learn the tools that sociologists employ to solve the problem of how to collect and organize useful, valid information through surveys, interviews, and statistical analysis.
3. Interact and make value-based decisions effectively in a multicultural world. By learning more about how and why different cultural groups think and act as they do, and how to thoughtfully compare different values and ways of life, you can interact more sensitively and helpfully with others in a variety of situations, and manage conflicts more successfully.
4. Explain your own social philosophy and take sound positions on social issues. You become better able to discuss and debate political and social questions from a more clearly developed stance of your own.

What you will study
The sociology program is organized by different threads or dimensions:

* First are foundational courses that give you a basic overview of the field and some initial experience applying social scientific ideas to work on concrete examples of social life. Here you see how sociology applies in all facets of life, from figuring out how people act and think in Internet chat rooms to how people from different social classes see each other. Some courses you take are Introduction to Social Science, Small Group Behavior, and Social Movements and Social Change, a course on organizational environments.
* Next is the core in political economics. Some of the most important forces shaping how a society works are the society's economic and political systems. Because these are so central to what happens in society, you need to learn a lot about them. You are concerned about how people make their livings, where our economy is heading, who gets elected to office, and why political decisions are made. Courses here include American Politics and Economic Environment.
* You also focus a great deal on research and practice in the discipline. Sociology emphasizes the use of valid and reliable data to inform its discussions: this is a big part of what makes a sociologist different from others who may have social concerns but are not as aware of the facts needed to explore them carefully. You take courses in Behavioral Science Research Methods and Probability and Statistics, employing the latest computer technologies. In various courses you learn interviewing skills. You also do a mentored internship at a site related to the discipline and your career goals, where you can practice using your sociological observation and analytical skills to meet your internship learning goals and gain experience in seeing how to apply sociology in the workplace. Toward the end of your program, you complete an advanced research project, working either in a team or independently to conduct more in-depth and detailed research on a particular topic or issue. The Alverno research and practice curriculum is very strong and often helps graduates get jobs or enter graduate school.
* You take a variety of topic courses that you choose to enhance your individual interests. You choose the ones most interesting to you and most relevant to your life. Some courses from which to choose are The Family, Criminology, Case Management, Community Development, American Political Behavior, Comparative Social Policy, Cross-Cultural Social Psychology, and several others.
* You can travel and study abroad. You can take courses that include study trips to foreign countries or study abroad for an entire semester. Alverno students regularly study abroad.
* You develop your sociological imagination. This means that you understand how your personal experiences and outlook shape and are shaped by the social context you are part of, and that you learn to construct a social and political outlook of your own that you can employ in debating important social issues. In particular, you take courses in social theory, in which you study how some great thinkers of the past and present understand society and imagine its direction, and Senior Seminar, in which you continue to learn about contemporary social debates. Also in Senior Seminar, you carry out research on a social issue, clarifying your own criteria for a "better" way to approach the issue or solving it.

Career Options
Given the breadth, adaptability, and usefulness of sociology to a variety of industries and careers, there are many employment opportunities for undergraduates. Skills in research design, data analysis, and identification of social trends can lead to careers in community and social services organizations, business and educational consulting, health organizations, criminal justice, federal and state government, the military, research centers, law enforcement, and public office. The discipline of sociology is excellent preparation for analyst-type careers such as emergency response planner, census analyst, foreign relations analyst, social impact assessment specialist, public opinion analyst, and interorganizational specialist (assisting organizations in different countries or industries develop mutually beneficial structures and working relationships).

A sociology degree, combined with support areas or graduate study in political science, communication, history, English, or nursing, also prepares you for practitioner-centered careers such as lawyer, public works administrator, city planner, community health director, social worker, contract mediator, elected public official, and political advisor.

Have you thought about...?
Using your sociology skills to fulfill your desire for making societal change?
As a sociology major, you develop a solid base for understanding social change. You acquire a sense of history, other cultures and times. Your training helps you formulate problems, ask appropriate questions, search for answers, and analyze situations and data. Because you develop the capacity to effectively interact with others and to recognize the interconnectedness of social life, you have the ideal background for becoming social change agents. With this degree, you can be a key player in improving your community and society.